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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 

BY 

JOHN HAY 



DELIVERED IN THE CAPITOL FEBRUARY 27, 1902 
BY INVITATION OF THE CONGRESS 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO, 

PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY *F 

CCNGRESS 
Two Copies Receive* 

APR. 30 1902 

COPVRI«HT ENTRY 



K5LAS8 CO XXc. 

3 / 7 / *) 
COPY B. 



No. 






Copyright, 1902, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company 



WILLIAM McKINLEY. 



For the third time the Congress of the United States 
are assembled to commemorate the life and the death of a 
President slain by the hand of an assassin. The atten- 
tion of the future historian will be attracted to the 
features which reappear with startling sameness in all 
three of these awful crimes : the uselessness, the utter 
lack of consequence of the act ; the obscurity, the insig- 
nificance of the criminal ; the blamelessness — so far 
as in our sphere of existence the best of men may be 
held blameless — of the victim. Not one of our murdered 
Presidents had an enemy in the world ; they were all of 
such preeminent purity of life that no pretext could be 
given for the attack of passional crime ; they were all 
men of democratic instincts, who could never have of- 
fended the most jealous advocates of equality ; they were 
of kindly and generous nature, to whom wrong or injus- 
tice was impossible ; of moderate fortune, whose slender 
means nobody could envy. They were men of austere 
virtue, of tender heart, of eminent abilities, which they 
had devoted with single minds to the good of the Repub- 
lic. If ever men walked before God and man without 
blame, it was these three rulers of our people. The only 
temptation to attack their lives offered was their gentle 
radiance — to eyes hating the light that was offence 
enough. 

(3) 



4 william Mckinley. 

The stupid uselessness of such an infamy affronts the 
common sense of the world. One can conceive how the 
death of a dictator may change the political conditions 
of an Empire ; how the extinction of a narrowing line of 
kings may bring in an alien dynasty. But in a well- 
ordered Republic like ours, the ruler may fall, but the 
state feels no tremor. Our beloved and revered leader 
is gone — but the natural process of our laws provides 
us a successor, identical in purpose and ideals, nourished 
by the same teachings, inspired by the same principles, 
pledged by tender affection as well as by high loyalty to 
carry to completion the immense task committed to his 
hands, and to smite with iron severity every manifesta- 
tion of that hideous crime which his mild predecessor, 
with his dying breath, forgave. The sayings of celestial 
wisdom have no date ; the words that reach us, over two 
thousand years, out of the darkest hour of gloom the world 
has ever known, are true to the life to-day : " They know 
not what they do." The blow struck at our dear friend 
and ruler was as deadly as blind hate could make it; 
but the blow struck at anarchy was deadlier still. 

What a world of insoluble problems such an event 
excites in the mind ! Not merely in its personal but 
in its public aspects it presents a paradox not to be com- 
prehended. Under a system of government so free and 
so impartial that we recognize its existence only by its 
benefactions ; under a social order so purely democratic 
that classes cannot exist in it, affording opportunities so 
universal that even conditions are as changing as the 
winds, where the laborer of to-day is the capitalist of to- 
morrow; under laws which are the result of ages of evo- 
lution, so uniform and so beneficent that the President 
has just the same rights and privileges as the artisan ; 
— we see the same hellish growth of hatred and murder 



william Mckinley, 5 

which dogs equally the footsteps of benevolent monarchs 
and blood-stained despots. How many countries can join 
with us in the community of a kindred sorrow ! I will 
not speak of those distant regions where assassination 
enters into the daily life of government. But among the 
nations bound to us by the ties of familiar intercourse — 
who can forget that wise and high-minded autocrat who 
had earned the proud title of the Liberator ? that en- 
lightened and magnanimous citizen whom France still 
mourns ? that brave and chivalrous King of Italy who only 
lived for his people ? and, saddest of all, that lovely and 
sorrowing Empress, whose harmless life could hardly have 
excited the animosity of a demon. Against that devilish 
spirit nothing avails — neither virtue, nor patriotism, nor 
age, nor youth, nor conscience, nor pity. We cannot even 
say that education is a sufficient safeguard against this 
baleful evil— for most of the wretches whose crimes 
have so shocked humanity in recent years are men not 
unlettered, who have gone from the common schools 
through murder to the scaffold. 

Our minds cannot discern the origin nor conceive the 
extent of wickedness so perverse and so cruel ; but this 
does not exempt us from the duty of trying to control 
and counteract it. We do not understand what electri- 
city is, whence it comes or what its hidden properties 
may be. But we know it as a mighty force for good or 
evil — and so with the painful toil of years, men of 
learning and skill have labored to store and to subjugate 
it, to neutralize, and even to employ its destructive 
energies. This problem of anarchy is dark and intricate, 
but it ought to be within the compass of democratic gov- 
ernment—although no sane mind can fathom the 

mysteries of these untracked and orbitless natures to 

guard against their aberrations, to take away from them 



6 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

the hope of escape, the long luxury of scandalous days in 
court, the unwholesome sympathy of hysterical degen- 
erates, and so by degrees to make the crime not worth 
committing, even to these abnormal and distorted souls. 

It would be presumptuous for me in this presence to 
suggest the details of remedial legislation for a malady 
so malignant. That task may safely be left to the skill 
and patience of the National Congress, which have never 
been found unequal to any such emergency. The country 
believes that the memory of three murdered comrades of 
y 0urs — all of whose voices still haunt these walls — 
will be a sufficient inspiration to enable you to solve 
even this abstruse and painful problem, which has 
dimmed so many pages of history with blood and with 
tears. 

Before an audience less sympathetic than this I should 
not dare to speak of that great career which we have met 
to commemorate. But we are all his friends, and friends 
do not criticise each other's words about an open grave. 
I thank you for the honor you have done me in inviting 
me here, and not less for the kind forbearance I know I 
shall have from you in my most inadequate efforts to 
speak of him worthily. 

The life of William McKinley was, from his birth to 
his death, typically American. There is no environ- 
ment, I should say, anywhere else in the world which 
could produce just such a character. He was born into 
that way of life which elsewhere is called the middle 
class, but which in this country is so nearly universal as 
to make of other classes an almost negligible quantity. 
He was neither rich nor poor, neither proud nor humble ; 
he knew no hunger he was not sure of satisfying, no 
luxury which could enervate mind or body. His parents 
were sober, God-fearing people ; intelligent and up- 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 7 

right; without pretension and without humility. He 
grew up in the company of boys like himself : whole- 
some, honest, self-respecting. They looked down on no- 
body ; they never felt it possible they could be looked 
down upon. Their houses were the homes of probity, 
piety, patriotism. They learned in the admirable school 
readers of fifty years ago the lessons of heroic and 
splendid life which have come down from the past. 
They read in their weekly newspapers the story of the 
world's progress, in which they were eager to take part, 
and of the sins and wrongs of civilization, with which 
they burned to do battle. It was a serious and thoughtful 
time. The boys of that day felt dimly, but deeply, that 
days of sharp struggle and high achievement were be- 
fore them. They looked at life with the wondering yet 
resolute eyes of a young esquire in his vigil of arms. 
They felt a time was coming when to them should be 
addressed the stern admonition of the Apostle, " Quit 
you like men ; be strong." 

It is not easy to give to those of a later generation 
any clear idea of that extraordinary spiritual awakening 
which passed over the country at the first red signal fires 
of the Civil War. It was not our earliest apocalypse : a 
hundred years before the nation had been revealed to it- 
self, when after long discussion and much searching of 
heart the people of the colonies had resolved that to live 
without liberty was worse than to die, and had there- 
fore wagered in the solemn game of war " their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honor." In a stress of heat 
and labor unutterable, the country had been hammered 
and welded together ; but thereafter for nearly a century 
there had been nothing in our life to touch the inner- 
most fountain of feeling and devotion. We had had 
rumors of wars, — even wars we had had, not without 



8 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

sacrifices and glory, — but nothing which went to the 
vital self-consciousness of the country, nothing which 
challenged the nation's right to live. But in 1860 the 
nation was going down into the Valley of Decision. The 
question which had been debated on thousands of plat- 
forms, which had been discussed in countless publica- 
tions, which, thundered from innumerable pulpits, had 
caused in their congregations the bitter strife and dissen- 
sion to which only cases of conscience can give rise, was 
everywhere pressing for solution. And not merely in 
the various channels of publicity was it alive and clam- 
orous. About every fireside in the land, in the conver- 
sation of friends and neighbors, and, deeper still, in the 
secret of millions of human hearts, the battle of opinion 
was waging ; and all men felt and saw — with more or 
less clearness — that an answer to the importunate 
question, Shall the nation live ? was due, and not to be 
denied. And I do not mean that in the North alone 
there was this austere wrestling with conscience. In the 
South as well, below all the effervescence and excite- 
ment of a people perhaps more given to eloquent speech 
than we were, there was the profound agony of question 
and answer, the summons to decide whether honor and 
freedom did not call them to revolution and war. It is 
easy for partisanship to say that the one side was right 
and that the other was wrong. It is still easier for an 
indolent magnanimity to say that both were right. Per- 
haps in the wide view of ethics one is always right to 
follow his conscience, though it lead him to disaster 
and death. But history is inexorable. She takes no 
account of sentiment and intention ; and in her cold and 
luminous eyes that side is right which fights in harmony 
with the stars in their courses. The men are right 
through whose efforts and struggles the world is helped 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 9 

onward, and humanity moves to a higher level and a 
brighter day. 

The men who are living to-day and who were young in 
1860 will never forget the glory and glamour that filled 
the earth and the sky when the long twilight of doubt 
and uncertainty was ending and the time of action had 
come. A speech by Abraham Lincoln was an event not 
only of high moral significance, but of far-reaching im- 
portance ; the drilling of a militia company by Ellsworth 
attracted national attention ; the fluttering of the flag in 
the clear sky drew tears from the eyes of young men. 
Patriotism, which had been a rhetorical expression, be- 
came a passionate emotion, in which instinct, logic, and 
feeling were fused. The country was worth saving ; it 
could be saved only by fire ; no sacrifice was too great ; 
the young men of the country were ready for the sacri- 
fice ; come weal, come woe, they were ready. 

At seventeen years of age William McKinley heard 
this summons of his country. He was the sort of youth 
to whom a military life in ordinary times would possess 
no attractions. His nature was far different from that 
of the ordinary soldier. He had other dreams of life, 
its prizes and pleasures, than that of marches and battles. 
But to his mind there was no choice or question. The 
banner floating in the morning breeze was the beckoning 
gesture of his country. The thrilling notes of the trum- 
pet called him — him and none other — into the ranks. 
His portrait in his first uniform is familiar to you all — 
the short, stocky figure ; the quiet, thoughtful face ; the 
deep, dark eyes. It is the face of a lad who could not 
stay at home when he thought he was needed in the 
field. He was of the stuff of which good soldiers are 
made. Had he been ten years older he would have 
entered at the head of a company and come out at the 



10 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

head of a division. But he did what he could. He 
enlisted as a private ; he learned to obey. His serious, 
sensible ways, his prompt, alert efficiency soon attracted 
the attention of his superiors. He was so faithful 
in little things they gave him more and more to do. 
He was untiring in camp and on the march; swift, 
cool, and fearless in fight. He left the army with field 
rank when the war ended, brevetted by President Lin- 
coln for gallantry in battle. 

In coming years when men seek to draw the moral of our 
great Civil War nothing will seem to them so admirable 
in all the history of our two magnificent armies as the 
way in which the war came to a close. When the Con- 
federate army saw the time had come, they acknowledged 
the pitiless logic of facts and ceased fighting. When the 
army of the Union saw it was no longer needed, without 
a murmur or question, making no terms, asking no re- 
turn, in the flush of victory and fulness of might it 
laid down its arms and melted back into the mass of 
peaceful citizens. There is no event, since the nation 
was born, which has so proved its solid capacity for self- ' 
government. Both sections share equally in that crown 
of glory. They had held a debate of incomparable im- 
portance and had fought it out with equal energy. A 
conclusion had been reached — and it is to the everlast- 
ing honor of both sides that they each knew when the 
war was over and the hour of a lasting peace had struck. 
We may admire the desperate daring of others who pre- 
fer annihilation to compromise, but the palm of common 
sense, and, I will say, of enlightened patriotism, belongs 
to the men like Grant and Lee, who knew when they had 
fought enough, for honor and for country. 

William McKinley, one of that sensible million of men, 
gladly laid down his sword and betook himself to his 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 11 

books. He quickly made up the time lost in soldiering. 
He attacked his Blackstone as he would have done a 
hostile entrenchment ; findirtg the range of a country law 
library too narrow, he went to the Albany Law School, 
where he worked energetically with brilliant success ; 
was admitted to the bar and settled down to practice — 
a brevetted veteran of 24 — in the quiet town of Canton, 
now and henceforward forever famous as the scene of 
his life and his place of sepulture. Here many bless- 
ings awaited him : high repute, professional success, and 
a domestic affection so pure, so devoted and stainless, 
that future poets, seeking an ideal of Christian marriage, 
will find in it a theme worthy of their songs. This is a 
subject to which the lightest allusion seems profanation; 
but it is impossible to speak of William McKinley with- 
out remembering that no truer, tenderer knight to his 
chosen lady ever lived among mortal men. If to the 
spirits of the just made perfect is j>ermitted the con- 
sciousness of earthly things, we may be sure that his 
faithful soul is now watching over that gentle sufferer 
who counts the long hours in their shattered home in the 
desolate splendor of his fame. 

A man possessing the qualities with which nature had 
endowed McKinley seeks political activity as naturally 
as a growing plant seeks light and air. A wholesome 
ambition ; a rare power of making friends and keeping 
them ; a faith, which may be called religious, in his 
country and its institutions ; and, flowing from this, a 
belief that a man could do no nobler work than to serve 
such a country — these were the elements in his charac- 
ter that drew him irresistibly into public life. He had 
from the beginning a remarkable equipment : a manner 
of singular grace and charm ; a voice of ringing quality 
and great carrying power — vast as were the crowds that 



12 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

gathered about him, he reached their utmost fringe with- 
out apparent effort. He had an extraordinary power 
of marshalling and presenting significant facts, so as 
to bring conviction to the average mind. His range 
of reading was not wide ; he read only what he might 
some day find useful, and what he read his memory held 
like brass. Those who knew him well in those early 
days can never forget the consummate skill and power 
with which he would select a few pointed facts, and, 
blow upon blow, would hammer them into the attention 
of great assemblages in Ohio, as Jael drove the nail into 
the head of the Canaanite captain. He was not often 
impassioned; he rarely resorted to the aid of wit or 
humor ; yet I never saw his equal in controlling and con- 
vincing a popular audience by sheer appeal to their 
reason and intelligence. He did not flatter or cajole 
them, but there was an implied compliment in the seri- 
ous and sober tone in which he addressed them. He 
seemed one of them ; in heart and feeling he was one of 
them. Each workingman in a great crowd might say : 
That is the sort of man I would like to be, and under 
more favoring circumstances might have been. He had 
the divine gift of sympathy, which, though given only to 
the elect, makes all men their friends. 

So it came naturally about that in 1876 — the begin- 
ning of the second century of the Eepublic — he began, 
by an election to Congress, his political career. There- 
after for fourteen years this Chamber was his home. I 
use the word advisedly. Nowhere in the world was he 
so in harmony with his environment as here ; nowhere 
else did his mind work with such full consciousness of 
its powers. The air of debate was native to him ; here 
he drank delight of battle with his peers. In after days, 
when he drove by this stately pile, or when on rare 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 13 

occasions his duty called him here, he greeted his old 
haunts with the affectionate zest of a child of the house ; 
during all the last ten years of his life, filled as they 
were with activity and glory, he never ceased to be home- 
sick for this Hall. When he came to the Presidency, 
there was not a day when his Congressional service was 
not of use to him. Probably no other President has 
been in such full and cordial communion with Congress, 
if we may except Lincoln alone. McKinley knew the 
legislative body thoroughly, its composition, its methods, 
its habits of thought. He had the profoundest respect 
for its authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate 
rectitude of its purposes. Our history shows how surely 
an Executive courts disaster and ruin by assuming an 
attitude of hostility or distrust to the Legislature ; and, 
on the other hand, McKinley's frank and sincere trust 
and confidence in Congress were repaid by prompt and 
loyal support and cooperation. During his entire term 
of office this mutual trust and regard — so essential to 
the public welfare — was never shadowed by a single 
cloud. 

He was a Eepublican. He could not be anything else. 
A Union soldier grafted upon a Clay Whig, he necessarily 
believed in the " American system " — in protection to 
home industries ; in a strong, aggressive nationality ; in a 
liberal construction of the Constitution. What any self- 
reliant nation might rightly do, he felt this nation had 
power to do, if required by the common welfare and not 
prohibited by our written charter. 

Following the natural bent of his mind, he devoted 
himself to questions of finance and revenue, to the essen- 
tials of the national housekeeping. He took high rank 
in the House from the beginning. His readiness in 
debate, his mastery of every subject he handled, the 



14 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

bright and amiable light he shed about him, and above 
all the unfailing courtesy and good will with which he 
treated friend and foe alike — one of the surest signa- 
tures of a nature born to great destinies — made his ser- 
vice in the House a pathway of unbroken success and 
brought him at last to the all-important post of Chair- 
man of Ways and Means and leader of the majority. Of 
the famous revenue act which, in that capacity, he 
framed and carried through Congress, it is not my pur- 
pose here and now to speak. The embers of the contro- 
versy in the midst of which that law had its troubled 
being are yet too warm to be handled on a day like this. 
I may only say that it was never sufficiently tested to 
prove the praises of its friends or the criticism of its 
opponents. After a brief existence it passed away, for a 
time, in the storm that swept the Eepublicans out of 
power. McKinley also passed through a brief zone of 
shadow ; his Congressional district having been rearranged 
for that purpose by a hostile legislature. 

Some one has said it is easy to love our enemies ; they 
help us so much more than our friends. The people 
whose malevolent skill had turned McKinley out of 
Congress deserved well of him and of the Republic. 
Never was Nemesis more swift and energetic. The Re- 
publicans of Ohio were saved the trouble of choosing a 
Governor — the other side had chosen one for them. A 
year after McKinley left Congress he was made Governor 
of Ohio, and two years later he was reelected, each time 
by majorities unhoped for and overwhelming. He came 
to fill a space in the public eye which obscured a great 
portion of the field of vision. In two National Conven- 
tions the Presidency seemed within his reach. But he 
had gone there in the interest of others and his honor 
forbade any dalliance with temptation. So his nay was 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 15 

nay — delivered with a tone and gesture there was no 
denying. His hour was not yet come. 

There was, however, no long delay. He became, from 
year to year, the most prominent politician and orator in 
the country. Passionately devoted to the principles of 
his party, he was always ready to do anything, to go 
anywhere, to proclaim its ideas and to support its candi- 
dates. His face and his voice became familiar to millions 
of our people ; and wherever they were seen and heard, 
men became his partisans. His face was cast in a clas- 
sic mold ; you see faces like it in antique marble in the 
galleries of the Vatican and in the portraits of the great 
cardinal-statesmen of Italy ; his voice was the voice of 
the perfect orator — ringing, vibrating, tireless, persuad- 
ing by its very sound, by its accent of sincere conviction. 
So prudent and so guarded were all his utterances, so 
lofty his courtesy, that he never embarrassed his friends, 
and never offended his opponents. For several months 
before the Republican National Convention met in 1896, 
it was evident to all who had eyes to see that Mr. 
McKinley was the only probable candidate of his party. 
Other names were mentioned, of the highest rank in 
ability, character, and popularity ; they were supported 
by powerful combinations ; but the nomination of McKin- 
ley as against the field was inevitable. 

The campaign he made will be always memorable in 
our political annals. He and his friends had thought 
that the issue for the year was the distinctive and his- 
toric difference between the two parties on the subject of 
the tariff. To this wager of battle the discussions of 
the previous four years distinctly pointed. But no 
sooner had the two parties made their nominations than 
it became evident that the opposing candidate declined 
to accept the field of discussion chosen by the Eepubli- 



16 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

cans, and proposed to put forward as the main issue the 
free coinage of silver. McKinley at once accepted this 
challenge, and taking the battle for protection as already- 
won, went with energy into the discussion of the theories 
presented by his opponents. He had wisely concluded 
not to leave his home during the canvass, thus avoiding 
a proceeding which has always been of sinister augury 
in our politics ; but from the front porch of his modest 
house in Canton he daily addressed the delegations which 
came from every part of the country to greet him in a 
series of speeches so strong, so varied, so pertinent, so 
full of facts briefly set forth, of theories embodied in 
a single phrase, that they formed the hourly text for 
the other speakers of his party, and give probably the 
most convincing proof we have of his surprising fertility 
of resource and flexibility of mind. All this was done 
without anxiety or strain. I remember a day I spent 
with him during that busy summer. He had made nine- 
teen speeches the day before; that day he made many. 
But in the intervals of these addresses he sat in his study 
and talked, with nerves as quiet and a mind as free from 
care as if we had been spending a holiday at the seaside 
or among the hills. 

When he came to the Presidency he confronted a sit- 
uation of the utmost difficulty, which might well have 
appalled a man of less serene and tranquil self-confidence. 
There had been a state of profound commercial and in- 
dustrial depression, from which his friends had said his 
election would relieve the country. Our relations with 
the outside world left much to be desired. The feeling 
between the Northern and Southern sections of the Union 
was lacking in the cordiality which was necessary to the 
welfare of both. Hawaii had asked for annexation and 
had been rejected by the preceding Administration. 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 17 

There was a state of things in the Caribbean which could 
not permanently endure. Our neighbor's house was on 
fire, and there were grave doubts as to our rights and 
duties in the premises. A man either weak or rash, 
either irresolute or headstrong, might have brought ruin 
on himself and incalculable harm to the country. 

Again I crave the pardon of those who differ with me, 
if, against all my intentions, I happen to say a word 
which may seem to them unbefitting the place and hour. 
But I am here to give the opinion which his friends en- 
tertained of President McKinley, of course claiming no 
immunity from criticism in what I shall say. I believe, 
then, that the verdict of history will be that he met all 
these grave questions with perfect valor and incompar- 
able ability ; that in grappling with them he rose to the 
full height of a great occasion, in a manner which re- 
dounded to the lasting benefit of the country and to his 
own immortal honor. 

The least desirable form of glory to a man of his habit- 
ual mood and temper — that of successful war — was 
nevertheless conferred upon him by uncontrollable events. 
He felt the conflict must come ; he deplored its necessity; 
he strained almost to breaking his relations with his 
friends, in order, first — if it might be — to prevent and 
then to postpone it to the latest possible moment. But 
when the die was cast, he labored with the utmost energy 
and ardor, and with an intelligence in military matters 
which showed how much of the soldier still survived in 
the mature statesman to push forward the war to a de- 
cisive close. War was an anguish to him ; he wanted it 
short and conclusive. His merciful zeal communicated 
itself to his subordinates, and the war, so long dreaded, 
whose consequences were so momentous, ended in a hun- 
dred days. 



18 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

Mr. Stedman, the dean of our poets, has called him 
" Augmenter of the State." It is a noble title ; if justly 
conferred, it ranks him among the few whose names may 
be placed definitely and forever in charge of the historic 
Muse. Under his rule Hawaii has come to us, and Tu- 
tuila ; Porto Rico and the vast archipelago of the East. 
Cuba is free. Our position in the Caribbean is assured 
beyond the possibility of future question. The doctrine 
called by the name of Monroe, so long derided and de- 
nied by alien publicists, evokes now no challenge or con- 
tradiction when uttered to the world. It has become an 
international truism. Our sister republics to the south 
of us are convinced that we desire only their peace and 
prosperity. Europe knows that we cherish no dreams 
but those of world-wide commerce, the benefit of which 
shall be to all nations. The state is augmented, but it 
threatens no nation under heaven. As to those regions 
which have come under the shadow of our flag, the pos- 
sibility of their being damaged by such a change of cir- 
cumstances was in the view of McKinley a thing 
unthinkable. To believe that we could not administer 
them to their advantage was to turn infidel to our 
American faith of more than a hundred years. 

In dealing with foreign powers he will take rank with 
the greatest of our diplomatists. It was a world of 
which he had little special knowledge before coming to 
the Presidency. But his marvellous adaptability was in 
nothing more remarkable than in the firm grasp he im- 
mediately displayed in international relations. In pre- 
paring for war and in the restoration of peace he was 
alike adroit, courteous, and far-sighted. When a sudden 
emergency declared itself, as in China, in a state of 
things of which our history furnished no precedent and 
international law no safe and certain precept, he hesi- 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 19 

tated not a moment to take the course marked out for 
him by considerations of humanity and the national in- 
terests. Even while the legations were fighting for their 
lives against bands of infuriated fanatics, he decided that 
we were at peace with China ; and while that conclusion 
did not hinder him from taking the most energetic meas- 
ures to rescue our imperilled citizens, it enabled him to 
maintain close and friendly relations with the wise and 
heroic viceroys of the south, whose resolute stand saved 
that ancient Empire from anarchy and spoliation. He 
disposed of every question as it arose wth a promptness 
and clarity of vision that astonished his advisers, and he 
never had occasion to review a judgment or reverse a 
decision. 

By patience, by firmness, by sheer reasonableness, he 
improved our understanding with all the great powers of 
the world, and rightly gained the blessing which belongs 
to the peacemakers. 

But the achievements of the nation in war and diplo- 
macy are thrown in the shade by the vast economical 
developments which took place during Mr. McKinley's 
administration. Up to the time of his first election, the 
country was suffering from a long period of depression, 
the reasons of which I will not try to seek. But from 
the moment the ballots were counted that betokened his 
advent to power a great and momentous movement in 
advance declared itself along all the lines of industry 
and commerce. In the very month of his inauguration 
steel rails began to be sold at eighteen dollars a ton — 
one of the most significant facts of modern times. It 
meant that American industries had adjusted themselves 
to the long depression — that through the power of the 
race to organize and combine, stimulated by the condi- 
tions then prevailing, and perhaps by the prospect of 



20 WILLIAM MCKINLEY, 

legislation favorable to industry, America had begun to 
undersell the rest of the world. The movement went on 
without ceasing. The President and his party kept the 
pledges of their platform and their canvass. The Ding- 
ley bill was speedily framed and set in operation. All 
industries responded to the new stimulus, and American 
trade set out on its new crusade, not to conquer the 
world, but to trade with it on terms advantageous to all 
concerned. I will not weary you with statistics ;* but 
one or two words seem necessary to show how the acts of 
McKinley as President kept pace with his professions as 
candidate. His four years of administration were costly ; 
we carried on a war which, though brief, was expensive. 
Although we borrowed two hundred millions and paid 
our own expenses, without asking for indemnity, the 
effective reduction of the debt now exceeds the total of 
the war bonds. We pay six millions less in interest 
than we did before the war and no bond of the United 
States yields the holder two per cent, on its market 
value. So much for the government credit ; and we have 
five hundred and forty-six millions of gross gold in the 
Treasury. 

But, coming to the development of our trade in the 
four McKinley years, we seem to be entering the realm 
of fable. In the last fiscal year our excess of exports 
over imports was $664,592,826. In the last four years 
it was $2,354,442,213. These figures are so stupendous 
that they mean little to a careless reader — but consider ! 
The excess of exports over imports for the whole preced- 
ing period from 1790 to 1897 — from Washington to 
McKinley — was only $356,808,822. 

The most extravagant promises made by the sanguine 
McKinley advocates five years ago are left out of sight 
by these sober facts. The " debtor nation " has become 



wizliam Mckinley. 21 

the chief creditor nation. The financial centre of the 
world, which required thousands of years to journey from 
the Euphrates to the Thames and the Seine seems pas" 
mg r to the Hudson between daybreak and dark ? 

I will not waste your time by explaining that I do not 
invoke for any man the credit of this vast result The 
captain cannot claim that it is he who drives the mighty 
steamship over the tumbling billows of the trackless 

ttfnfT T 186 !? JUSUy dUe Wm if he has made the 
best of her tremendous powers, if he has read aright the 
currents of the sea and the lessons of the stars. And we 
should be ungrateful if in this hour of prodigious Jot 
penty we should fail to remember that William McLn- 
ley with sublime faith foresaw it, with indomitable cour- 
age labored for it put his whole heart and mind into the 
work of brmgmg it about; that it was his voice which, 
in dark hours, rang out, heralding the coming light as 
over the twilight waters of the Nile the mystic cry o 
Memnon announced the dawn to Egypt, waking L 

tert m °f « e m ° St agreeaWe inCideuts of the President's 
Sol T, We r * he tw °J° u ™ e ^ 1^ made to the 
South The moral reunion of the sections - so long and 
so ardently desired by him -had been initiated by the 
Spanish war, when the veterans of both sides, and their 
sons, had marched shoulder to shoulder together under 
he same banner. The President in these journeys 
sought, with more than usual eloquence and pathos, to 
create a sentiment which should end forever the anoint 
leud. He was too good a politician to expect any results 

L! 71 f V T " WS faV ° r ' and he accomplished 
none. But for all that, the good seed did not fall on 
barren ground. In the warm and chivalrous hearts of 
that generous people the echo of his cordial and broth- 



22 william Mckinley. 

erly words will linger long, and his name will be cher- 
ished in many a household where even yet the Lost Cause 
is worshipped. 

Mr. McKinley was reelected by an overwhelming 
majority. There had been little doubt of the result 
among well-informed people ; but when it was known, a 
profound feeling of relief and renewal of trust were evi- 
dent among the leaders of capital and of industry, not 
only in this country, but everywhere. They felt that 
the immediate future was secure, and that trade and 
commerce might safely push forward in every field of 
effort and enterprise. He inspired universal confidence, 
which is the life-blood of the commercial system of the 
world. It began frequently to be said that such a state 
of things ought to continue ; one after another, men of 
prominence said that the President was his own best sue 
cessor. He paid little attention to these suggestions 
until they were repeated by some of his nearest friends. 
Then he saw that one of the most cherished traditions of 
our public life was in danger. The generation which 
has seen the prophecy of the Papal throne — Non videbis 
annos Petri — twice contradicted by the longevity of 
holy men was in peril of forgetting the unwritten law of 
our Republic : Thou shalt not exceed the years of Wash- 
ington. The President saw it was time to speak, and in 
his characteristic manner he spoke, briefly, but enough. 
Where the lightning strikes there is no need of iteration. 
From that hour, no one dreamed of doubting his purpose 
of retiring at the end of his second term, and it will be 
long before another such lesson is required. 

He felt that the harvest time was come, to garner in 
the fruits of so much planting and culture, and he was 
determined that nothing he might do or say should be 
liable to the reproach of a personal interest. Let us say 

L.ofC. 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 23 

frankly he was a party man ; he believed the policies 
advocated by him and his friends counted for much in 
the country's progress and prosperity. He hoped in his 
second term to accomplish substantial results in the de- 
velopment and affirmation of those policies. I spent a 
day with him shortly before he started on his fateful 
journey to Buffalo. Never had I seen him higher in 
hope and patriotic confidence. He was as sure of the 
future of his country as the Psalmist who cried, " Glori- 
ous things are spoken of thee, thou City of G-od." He 
was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty 
which gave us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he 
saw the canal already built and the argosies of the world 
passing through it in peace and amity. He saw in the 
immense evolution of American trade the fulfilment of 
all his dreams, the reward of all his labors. He was — 
I need not say — an ardent protectionist, never more sin- 
cere and devoted than during those last days of his life. 
He regarded reciprocity as the bulwark of protection — 
not a breach, but a fulfilment of the law. The treaties 
which for four years had been preparing under his per- 
sonal supervision he regarded as ancillary to the general 
scheme. He was opposed to any revolutionary plan of 
change in the existing legislation ; he was careful to 
point out that everything he had done was in faithful 
compliance with the law itself. 

In that mood of high hope, of generous expectation, he 
went to Buffalo, and there, on the threshold of eternity, 
he delivered that memorable speech, worthy for its lofti- 
ness of tone, its blameless morality, its breadth of view, 
to be regarded as his testament to the nation. Through 
all his pride of country and his joy of its success, runs 
the note of solemn warning, as in Kipling's noble hymn, 
" Lest we forget." 



24 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

A 

Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously and our 
products have so multiplied that the problem of more markets re- 
quires our urgent and immediate attention. Only a broad and en- 
lightened policy will keep what we have. No other policy will get 
more. In these times of marvellous business energy and gain we 
ought to be looking to the future, strengthening the weak places 
in our industrial and commercial systems, that we may be ready for 
any storm or strain. 

By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our 
home production we shall extend the outlets for our increasing sur- 
plus. A system which provides a mutual exchange of commodities 
is manifestly essential to the continued and healthful growth of our 
export trade. We must not repose in fancied security that we can 
forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. If such a thing 
were possible, it would not be best for us or for those with whom 
we deal. . . . Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our 
wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now 
firmly established. . . . The period of exclusiveness is past. 
The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. 
Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good will and 
friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties 
are in harmony with the spirit of the times ; measures of retalia- 
tion are not. 

I wish I had time to read the whole of this wise and 
weighty speech ; nothing I might say could give such a 
picture of the President's mind and character. His 
years of apprenticeship had been served. He stood that 
day past master of the art of statesmanship. He had 
nothing more to ask of the people. He owed them noth- 
ing but truth and faithful service. His mind and heart 
were purged of the temptations which beset all men en- 
gaged in the struggle to survive. In view of the revela- 
tion of his nature vouchsafed to us that day, and the fate 
which impended over him, we can only say in deep affec- 
tion and solemn awe, " Blessed are the pure in heart, for 
they shall see God." Even for that vision he was not 
unworthy. 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 25 

He had not long to wait. The next day sped the bolt 
of doom, and for a week after — in an agony of dread 
broken by illusive glimpses of hope that our prayers 
might be answered — the nation waited for the end. 
Nothing in the glorious life that we saw gradually wan- 
ing was more admirable and exemplary than its close. 
The gentle humanity of his words, when he saw his as- 
sailant in danger of summary vengeance, " Don't let them 
hurt him ; " his chivalrous care that the news should be 
broken gently to his wife ; the fine courtesy with which 
he apologized for the damage which his death would 
bring to the great Exhibition ; and the heroic resignation 
of his final words, " It is God's way. His will, not ours, 
be done," were all the instinctive expressions of a nature 
so lofty and so pure that pride in its nobility at once 
softened and enhanced the nation's sense of loss. The 
Republic grieved over such a son — but is proud forever 
of having produced him. After all, in spite of its tragic 
ending, his life was extraordinarily happy. He had, all 
his days, troops of friends, the cheer of fame and fruitful 
labor ; and he became at last — 

" On fortune's crowning slope, 
The pillar of a people's hope, 
The centre of a world's desire." 

He was fortunate even in his untimely death, for an 
event so tragical called the world imperatively to the im- 
mediate study of his life and character, and thus antici- 
pated the sure praises of posterity. 

Every young and growing people has to meet, at mo- 
ments, the problems of its destiny. Whether the ques- 
tion comes, as in Thebes, from a sphinx, symbol of the 
hostile forces of omnipotent nature, who punishes with 
instant death our failure to understand her meaning ; or 



26 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 

whether it comes, as in Jerusalem, from the Lord of 
Hosts, who commands the building of His temple, it 
comes always with the warning that the past is past, and 
experience vain. " Your fathers, where are they ? and 
the prophets, do they live forever ? " The fathers are 
dead; the prophets are silent; the questions are new, 
and have no answer but in time. 

When the horny outside case which protects the in- 
fancy of a chrysalis nation suddenly bursts, and, in a 
single abrupt shock, it finds itself floating on wings which 
had not existed before, whose strength it has never tested, 
among dangers it cannot foresee and is without experi- 
ence to measure, every motion is a problem, and every 
hesitation may be an error. The past gives no clue to 
the future. The fathers, where are they ? and the proph- 
ets, do they live forever ? We are ourselves the fathers ! 
We are ourselves the prophets ! The questions that are 
put to us we must answer without delay, without help — 
for the sphinx allows no one to pass. 

At such moments we may be humbly grateful to have 
had leaders simple in mind, clear in vision, — as far as 
human vision can safely extend, — penetrating in knowl- 
edge of men, supple and flexible under the strains and 
pressures of society, instinct with the energy of new life 
and untried strength, cautious, calm, and, above all, 
gifted in a supreme degree with the most surely victo- 
rious of all political virtues — the genius of infinite 
patience. 

The obvious elements which enter into the fame of a 
public man are few and by no means recondite. The 
man who fills a great station in a period of change, who 
leads his country successfully through a time of crisis ; 
who, by his power of persuading and controlling others, 
has been able to command the best thought of his age, 



WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 27 

so as to leave his country in a moral or material condi- 
tion in advance of where he found it, — such a man's 
position in history is secure. If, in addition to this, his 
written or spoken words possess the subtle quality which 
carry them far and lodge them in men's hearts ; and, 
more than all, if his utteraDces and actions, while in- 
formed with a lofty morality, are yet tinged with the 
glow of human sympathy, the fame of such a man will 
shine like a beacon through the mists of ages — ■ an ob- 
ject of reverence, of imitation, and of love. It should 
be to us an occasion of solemn pride that in the three 
great crises of our history such a man was not denied us. 
The moral value to a nation of a renown such as Wash- 
ington's and Lincoln's and McKinley's is beyond all 
computation. No loftier ideal can be held up to the 
emulation of ingenuous youth. With such examples we 
cannot be wholly ignoble. Grateful as we may be for 
what they did, let us be still more grateful for what they 
were. While our daily being, our public policies, still 
feel the influence of their work, let us pray that in our 
spirits their lives may be voluble, calling us upward and 
onward. 

There is not one of us but feels prouder of his native 
land because the august figure of Washington presided 
over its beginnings ; no one but vows it a tenderer love 
because Lincoln poured out his blood for it ; no one but 
must feel his devotion for his country renewed and 
kindled when he remembers how McKinley loved, re- 
vered, and served it, showed in his life how a citizen 
should live, and in his last hour taught us how a gentle- 
man could die. 



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